


I Need You (To Need Me)

by KiiKitsune



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amoral reactions to murder, Angst, Gore, M/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiiKitsune/pseuds/KiiKitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek kills a man. Stiles picks up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Need You (To Need Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this picture: http://allhismen.tumblr.com/post/30092298263/im-naked-im-numb-im-stupid-im-staying
> 
> *Post Season two, but ignoring the alpha pack storyline because the show will do it much better than I ever could.

The first time Derek turns, really turns, as an alpha, it’s not pretty. He doesn’t morph into a grotesque, unrecognizable beast the way Peter had. He isn’t a true wolf either, the way Laura was. It’s somewhere between the two; too big to be the actual animal, fur too coarse and legs too long.

There is no sound, no warning. Derek shudders and drops. His fingers curl into the dirt and his spine ripples. Stiles can see it, the way every knob bubbles up to the surface, one by one, shifting into place. His ribcage widens, bone by bone, stretching the tank top until the seams are straining.

When the clothes finally burst, Stiles lets out a sharp breath. Stillness reigns as the man, the stupid bastard, realise what’s about to happen.

Then Derek is moving. He’s ripping and tearing and biting. His thick, dark fur is getting matted with blood and guts. The air is foul, a putrid stink that settles in the back of Stiles’ throat.

When Derek is done, he looms over the pieces, panting like the animal he is. Derek leaps towards Stiles and there is a split second where Stiles has time to regret their earlier argument, but none to apologize.

Derek’s blood wet fur just rushes past his bare arm, leaving a red streak across his skin, and then Derek’s gone.

Stiles is left alone with a dismembered corpse, beside the skeleton of a house, contemplating what it means that pity is something he reserves for people like Derek and not the poor schmuck bleeding onto his sneakers.

\--

The treaty is signed at 1:34 on a Saturday. There is nothing remarkable about it. They don’t celebrate. This is a necessity, justified by people lost and lives burned away.

The Argents, just Allison and Chris now, no longer have the support of wandering hunters but they do have their name. That, at least, will keep other families away. Chris puts it down in neat, careful letters, the black ink stark against white paper.

The Hale pack, if it can really be called that, have Derek write for them. He grips the pen too tightly and Peter’s got a hand on his shoulder like everyone knows who’s really signing the agreement.

Scott puts his own name down, handwriting the same as it’s been since kindergarten. He smiles when he’s done, but no one returns it.

Lydia signs for Jackson.

\--

Stiles doesn’t have a shovel and he doesn’t know where the Hales kept their gardening tools. Or if they even had any, for that matter.

He can move the bigger pieces around the side of the house though, behind some shrubbery. They feel odd and weighty in his hands. Stiles has never touched dead flesh before.

He wonders what it must have been like for Derek to haul Peter’s charred corpse into the basement. How it must have felt to nail old floorboards back over top of him.

Stiles uses scraps of jean to scrape up the smaller chunks, leaving the ruined material in the bushes as well. He kicks dirt over the puddles of blood and gastric acid.

\--

Scott gets a tattoo. He never mentioned wanting one before, but Stiles get it. He’s coming into himself.

When Stiles asks how he got the ink to stay, how he explained the way his skin healed to the artist, Scott rambles off something about Deaton and wolfsbane and pain. He talks about the pain the most, but he looks down on the two black bands around his bicep fondly.

Stiles touches it because Scott lets him. The only other person Stiles knows with a tattoo is Derek. Scott’s is thick and dark, the same way Derek’s is. Stiles wonders if he did that on purpose or if it was subconscious. Probably the later.

Scott’s tattoo means autonomy.

Stiles doesn’t know what Derek’s means to him, but he’s willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with binding himself to something than to freedom.

He doesn’t tell Scott, but Stiles likes the symbolism of Derek’s more.

\--

It’s dark. The moonlight always seems like enough to see by on tv, but it’s really not.

Stiles wipes his hands off on the rags of Derek’s shirt as he stumbles his way through the underbrush.

Even in the blackness, there’s a pretty clear path broken through the trees. Splintered wood, crushed plants. Stiles has to stop and scrub at the occasional spot of blood on bark. He kicks leaves over paw prints as he goes, then footprints.

\--

Jackson’s first full moon after the change goes well. Lydia drags him to Scott’s house and demands Scott teach him how to use her as an anchor.

Stiles and Lydia sit together and don’t talk. He fidgets nervously, but not for the reasons he used to. He’s seen her cry, and he didn’t think it was beautiful. It was ugly and heartbreaking, for both of them. Now he can’t look her in the eye; it would feel like an intrusion.

If Lydia notices, she doesn’t care.

\--

The tree is big and old, gnarled in a way the rest of the forest hasn’t really managed yet. Derek’s leaning against it, palms pressed flat to the wood.

He’s not human again. He’s not human ever. But he is a man.

The moonlight, what little there is, catches on the rise of his shoulders, the curve of his flank. There’s only a little blood on his back, but Stiles can see the way it caresses his sides, curling around in splatter patterns.

When Derek sinks to his knees his hands leave stains on the tree. With his arms raised up and his soles off the ground, the blood on them is even more apparent.

The forest isn’t quiet at night, but right then, in the tiny clearing, all Stiles can hear is Derek’s breathing.

\--

Isaac really has two packs. He never says it, and Scott doesn’t see it, but Derek does and Stiles sees the way Derek looks at Isaac.

Eyes are not so eloquent as to portray complicated things like betrayal. They can show hurt though, and they can show the coldness that seeps in when it’s easier to put up barriers than to talk. Stiles knows Derek well enough to understand what that means.

Stiles wonders if anyone analyses the look on his face while he watches Isaac befriend Scott in a way he never can.

\--

Stiles moves closer, reaches a hand out but doesn’t touch. The tree is more visible now and he can see claw marks. They’re old, half healed away, but the gashes must have run deep when they were first made. The scars are precise and, even partially gone, Stiles can read the names.

Laura and Peter are at the bottom, fresher than the others. Peter is bleeding from the r, where Derek’s thumb had been resting. It probably says something that Derek hadn’t scratched it out; or that he even carved it there in the first place.

Stiles puts his hand on Derek’s back then, above the tattoo. His thumb strokes absently over the nape of Derek’s neck and he can’t help but envision the way the bones and muscles had shifted during the change. He doesn’t snatch his hand back. He doesn’t want to.

\--

Peter is a snake in the grass if Stiles ever saw one. Luckily, without any particular crisis, Stiles has no reason to see the Hale pack unless they come talk to Scott. Mostly they just send messages through Isaac.

Sometimes though, they all meet like they had at the treaty signing. Usually they talk about the missing ones. Boyd and Erica. Gerard.

They’re all worried, even if it is for different reasons, so they check in with each other when they can. Because no one knows anything, it really just becomes a meet-n-greet; planning for the next full moon, seeing how the renovations on the Hale house are coming (they aren’t), passing around biting remarks, enduring awkward silences, and make sure no one’s killed anyone else.

Peter never stays silent, but the only things he contributes are pointless and inappropriate comments.

Then he suggests someone go looking for Gerard. Actively looking, not just the half-hearted ‘well if we see him...’ kind of searching they’d been doing up until then. And then he volunteers.

If that doesn’t mean he has an ulterior motive, Stiles doesn’t know what does.

The plan itself is a descent one; it’s been too long and they’re getting restless. Gerard is dangerous, and left alone will probably come back for revenge. They need to head him off before he gets too strong. Most of the wolves are in school though and as an alpha Derek can’t abandon his pack and territory. Peter would be the perfect candidate if anyone could actually trust him.

Chris, less reluctant than he might have been before Victoria’s death and Allison’s detour off sanity road, agrees to go too.

With her father gone, Allison assumes control of the hunter side of the treaty. She might be more emotionally stable now, but she isn’t lenient by any stretch of the imagination. Not even Scott gets a free pass.

It’s funny, Stiles thinks, how leadership can be so isolating.

\--

Stiles circles around, pulling his jeans up so he can crouch down. He tugs at the arm closest to him, until it falls and he can see Derek’s face.

Derek’s mouth is open, teeth red, like closing it would mean he was accepting what just happened.

Stiles wipes the spit and blood off his chin with the shirt, scrubs his stubble as clean he can get it. Derek closes his eyes and lets him. It won’t be enough. They’ll have to go back to the house, to Stiles’ Jeep, so he can drive Derek to his apartment.

Stiles already called his Dad and said he’d be staying late at Scott’s. His Dad will just assume he slept over if he doesn’t come home.

\--

Other hunters, as it turns out, don’t respect the Argent name so much when a teenage girl is the last one in the area. A group shows up to test the waters.

It might have been fine if they’d gone to Allison and really looked at the lay of the land. They don’t though; they’re nowhere near as old as the Argents, one or two generations at most, and they don’t have a single name to fall behind. Four women and three men, looking to protect the world and finding the worst possible way to do it.

After everything he’s been through, it really isn’t fair that they hunt Jackson first.

Lydia goes to Allison, who goes to Scott, who goes to Derek, who has no one to go to for help. Stiles isn’t surprised that Derek refuses, he doesn’t have the manpower to intimidate the hunters away any more than the rest of them do, and no one wants to start a war when their own aren’t already becoming casualties.

Stiles understands, but he knows Derek is just making the same mistake they all were before. ‘No one trusts anyone’ is now just ‘Derek trusts no one’, and it’s only Derek who doesn’t see how that’s going to end.

\--

Stiles stands up and walks away. He can hear Derek follow him. They make it back to the Hale house and then Derek stops. Stiles turns to find him looking at the bushes where Stiles had stashed the body.

They can deal with that later.

Stiles grabs Derek by his sticky forearm and drags him the rest of the way to the car.

\--

Lydia takes a bullet meant for Jackson. The gun is old and the bullet is like a miniature cannon ball, the silver splintering on impact, ripping a hole into her shoulder but bursting before it makes it all the way through.

The hunters run when they realise what they’ve done, and Jackson would go after them if it didn’t mean leaving Lydia alone. He takes her to the Scott’s house because his mom is a nurse and Lydia refuses to go to the hospital again. It’s not ideal, but she’s alive.

Stiles watches Jackson, sleeping on top of Scott’s bed beside Lydia, and decides he’s done.

Derek doesn’t get any outs anymore.

\--

Stiles had been invited to Derek’s new apartment only once, for one of their meet-ups. He’d made sure to memorize exactly where it was just in case though.

He’d been there half an hour ago, banging on the door looking for the alpha.

Apparently he could have just opened the door and checked, because Derek doesn’t pull a key out of a secret hiding place, and he certainly doesn’t have one on him. He just turns the handle and walks inside. It’s not like Derek has to worry about protecting himself or his lack of things.

He heads straight for the bathroom and Stiles doesn’t stop him, just watches him ghost across the room and turn the shower on.

Stiles locks the front door and goes to the kitchen in search of cleaning supplies. He wipes down the tile floor, where Derek’s tracked in bits of leaves and man. When he’s done the shower is still running, so he goes out and cleans up his car and the steps up to the building.

The shower is still on when he comes back.

\--

He’s yelling. He didn’t come here for that, but it’s spilling out and he can’t stop it. The last time that happened, Lydia had gone cold and left him to his misery.

Derek doesn’t leave; he just stares, a little wide-eyed.

Stiles yells his thoughts, his fears. The last time he voiced those, Scott had just told him it didn’t matter.

Derek doesn’t even speak.

Stiles yells about how stupid Derek is and it’s not the first time, but for once Derek looks like he might agree. Stiles stops then, because he knew Derek was a bad alpha, but he didn’t think that Derek did too.

\--

Stiles doesn’t knock, just walks into the tiny room and breathes in the steam. He pulls back the curtain from the tub-shower. Derek is standing, eyes glazed and looking at nothing. He hasn’t bothered to clean himself at all and the water can only beat away so much on its own.

Stiles pushes the sleeves of his hoodie up to his elbows, grabs the cloth, and doesn’t let himself think. It feels, strangely, like the time when he was thirteen and the neighbours decided to entrust their six year old’s safety to him for the night. The kid had dumped ravioli all over everything.

Stiles could try to pretend Derek’s covered in tomato sauce, but he doesn’t really think he can manage it. He was there, after all, and if his brain hasn’t decided it was traumatic enough to block out by now it probably never will.

He shuts off the water and hands Derek a towel from the rack. Derek can manage that, at least.

\--

The hunter comes, and he’s armed.

He’s not the one who shot Lydia, but Stiles sees red. He’s yelling again, and the man tries to talk, tries to tell Derek that they didn’t mean to hurt a human. Derek. Not Stiles.

Stiles goes to punch him, to hurt him, to claw his eyes out; because even if apologies were somehow enough, it’s not Derek who deserves one, or even Stiles for that matter. The hunter’s drawn his gun before Stiles can touch him, and then it’s Derek who stops thinking.

\--

Stiles pulls clothes from Derek’s drawer, hands them to the man then collapses on his bed. Derek dresses and sits down beside him.

“I lost control,” Derek says.

He’s looking down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap.

He’s never been a human; always the wolf, but never like this.

Stiles watches Derek out of the corner of his eye.

“I won’t let you do it again.”

Derek is looking at him and Stiles knows Derek can hear the steady thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat, telling Derek it’s not a lie. It might not be true either, but if Stiles wants it, believes it, _it’s_ _not a lie_.

Stiles reaches up and tugs on the back of Derek’s shirt.

Derek sinks down onto the mattress beside him.

Right now, they both need this. They’ll find a shovel later.


End file.
